Journal

Chapter One – Getting There

July 25, 2004 – 7a.m. (Tanzania)

Day 4!

Day 4, you ask? And this is the first journal entry? Things have been very busy, to say the least.

Balazs, Nate, and I left from LAX on Wednesday July 21st at 9p.m. Amber was nice enough to take the 3 of us to the airport from San Diego.

We flew Virgin Atlantic from LA to London Heathrow. The trip took about 10 hours. It wasn’t bad. It was quite smooth, actually. From London we took a Kenya Airways flight to Nairobi, Kenya. This flight took about 9 hours and dropped us off in Nairobi at 7 a.m. on Friday July 23. We then took a small turbo-prop operated by Precision Air from Nairobi to Kilimanjaro International airport. It was a quick 45-minute flight, and we got to see a spectacular view of Kili on the way. Just as planned, our guide Wilbert was at the airport to pick us up. He is a very friendly and helpful guy. So far, so good! Wilbert and his driver took us out to our hotel near Arusha. The place we were supposed to stay at was not finished with renovations, so they (Eben) put us up in a place called Ngurdoto Mountain Lodge instead. This place massively exceeded my expectations. We each got our own bungalow – complete with spa tub and bidet! The place is beautifully nestled at the base of Mount Meru, and is surrounded by a coffee plantation. We were all very tired, but decided to stay up and go to sleep according to Tanzania time (10 hours ahead of San Diego).

While exploring the lodge’s grounds, we came across an area that is slated to become an 18-hole golf course. We started to walk along what essentially is just old farmland, and we were intercepted by a local man named Steve. It turns out that Steve did the landscaping for the lodge and has been tasked with building this golf course. He admitted that he has never designed and built a golf course before, but he is excited to give it a try. He offered to give us a tour of the future course, and we happily accepted. Steve was very friendly and talkative. I learned a lot about how things are done in “the African way”. Steve is from Kenya so he had a different perspective on Kenya and Tanzania. I am not sure how the golf course will turn out (it is being built by hand with a staff of 30 people and 1 tractor), but it should be interesting. I will have to make it a point to check back with the lodge in a year or so to see what happened.

By dinnertime we were all falling asleep at the table, so we hit the sack early.

On Saturday July 24th, I awoke after sleeping 12 hours and I was ready to take on the day! It turns out that the Arusha Mountain Lodge was still not ready, so Wilbert told us that we would be staying at the Ngurdoto Mountain Lodge for another night. Later that day we were slated for our gear check, but we had time to kill. While working out our lodging situation, we met the 3 Australians that we would be climbing with – Benno, his son Tim, and their friend Matt. They seem like a great group of guys, so we are excited that they are joining us on the trek. We all got together for some beers to kill time, which was good because it gave us all a chance to get acquainted.

Gear check went well – everything was in order. We are all very ready to get started on the climb!

Chapter Two – The Trek!

Day 1 – Monday, July 25th, 2004

We all reported to the lodge reception area to leave for the trek at 8 a.m. 2 Toyota Land Cruisers picked us up for the 2-hour drive to our trailhead. I feel like I could write for hours on just the things I saw on the way to the trailhead!

At least half of the trip was on a VERY bumpy dirt road. We saw miles of beautiful wilderness ranging from southern California style high dessert to dense jungle rain forests and even massive mountain pine forests! We also drove through several villages – some looked very poor and run down, and some were quaint and inviting. It even appeared that some of the villages spent time landscaping – planting specific trees and bushes in specific locations – it looked great! One particular village stands out in my mind – It was situated way up in the hills. It was all wood construction (simple construction at that) but looked quite poor. To our astonishment, we saw a massive satellite dish (the kind you might have seen in someone’s back yard in the 80’s) sticking out of the roof of one of the huts in the center of the village!

Day 7 – Saturday, July 31st, 2004 – 4:21 p.m.

I know that there is still much to fill you in on since my last entry, but I feel that I need to write while I still have these ideas fresh in my mind.

Today has been the hardest day of my life – physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Today we started our climb up Kili’s Western Breach. We started hiking at 6:20 in the morning. We were on the dark side of the mountain, so the sun wasn’t due up for quite some time. You have to see the Western Breach for yourself to appreciate what I am talking about. It has an extremely aggressive grade and is made up of sand, lose rocks, glaciers, boulders, and stone outcroppings. From our camp at Arrow Glacier, we were slated to cover 2500 feet of vertical – and don’t forget that the camp is at roughly 16,500 feet!

It was very cold in the morning, and the altitude had me fighting for breath from the start. I used the rest-step method whenever possible to conserve energy, but the makeup of the trail required frequent scampering and climbing up large stones. The hike was slated to take about 6 hours, and by hour 2 I was done! It wasn’t that I was out of energy or that my muscles gave up on me – I simply couldn’t breathe sufficiently at that altitude. It seemed that every five minutes I had to stop and catch my breath. It was pathetic! Before I knew it, the whole group had passed me up, a second group passed me up, and then a third! Wilbert had to assign a guide just to keep an eye on me. The guide’s nickname was Biggie. It goes without saying that he is a wonderful, patient, and supportive man. Half way into the hike, I was at my worst. I was tired, broken, out of breath, and emotionally stretched thin. I am embarrassed to admit this, but I began to contemplate quitting. I was so discouraged by my performance, especially when compared to the others, that it seemed like giving in might be the thing I should do. Just as I was at my lowest point of despair, and it must have been written all over my face, Biggie told me to take it easy – rest and catch my breath – pole pole – we still have plenty of time to finish. I almost burst into tears! Granted, this man is paid to be a guide, but his sincerity and concern for me was almost overwhelming. I began to chastise myself for entertaining thoughts of quitting. After all, I had promised myself that I would summit this mountain unless it killed me! I began to think back to all the shameful times that I had quit in my life. I was trying to make a change with this trip. I was trying to prove to myself that I could accomplish something that is very challenging without quitting! With that in mind, I put one foot in front of the other and began to work my way up the mountain. This cycle of self-doubt and self-realization continued for quite some time. About 4 hours into the climb, we reached our lunch stop. Granted, everyone else had reached the stop quite some time before me, yet all the porters and guides were chanting my name and singing songs of success as though I was the winner of some major competition. It then dawned on me… I was victorious in one sense – I had overcome a battle within myself and had beaten my own self-doubt. They knew I was down and had struggled to get this far, and they were praising me for making it. Not only that, but they had waited to serve lunch until I had arrived! This was an awesome personal moment for me. I then realized that I was going to reach Kili’s crater rim camp even if I took twice as long as the others. The final 2 hours of the climb went by relatively quickly. I had a renewed spirit and completed the trek at my own pace. As I came up over the crater rim, it took all my strength to avoid bursting out into tears of joy and frustration. Here I was, a mere 1500 feet from the summit, and my breathing problems were worse than ever! I had to walk the flat trail over to camp VERY slowly to avoid passing out. All sorts of negative thoughts began running through my head – why is my breathing ability so much worse than the others? Is this the beginning of HAPE? Is my life in danger? Surely I won’t be able to participate in the short hike to the ash pit, the moth of the volcano? I voiced my concerns to Wilbert, and he felt that it was probably nothing serious.

My breathing problems began to get worse. I had developed a bad cough and was coughing up green phlegm – not a good sign. I began to question whether I was having altitude problems or was suffering from some sort of chest infection. By this time, it was late and I had retired to my sleeping bag. I contemplated whether or not to wake Benno and ask his advice, but I decided not to bother him this late in the evening – after all, he came on this trip as trekker, not as a doctor for us tourists. After giving it some thought, I decided to start taking my course of Cipiro to see if it would help. The Cipiro was prescribed to me by my doctor to fight off traveler’s diarrhea caused by a stomach infection. I figured that if the Cipiro could fight off a stomach infection, it ought to help with what I perceived to be a chest infection. With that, I went to sleep. I woke up a lot that night coughing.

Day 8 – Sunday, August 1st, 2004

I awoke feeling much better this morning, and set out with the others to reach the summit. What a difference a good nights sleep makes! We all summitted safely, with the exception of Matt who summitted the day before in order to get to the airport in time to catch his flight home. I called both Amber and my parents from the summit via Wilbert’s satellite phone. I missed Amber, but left a message on our answering machine. It was great to talk to my parents. They could hardly believe it! There was much celebration and many pictures taken. To their credit, Benno and Tim had each brought flasks of whiskey, so we wasted no time in passing around the flasks and celebrating the moment. We were fortunate enough to reach the peak when no one else was there. It was a beautiful clear and crisp morning – it couldn’t have been better! It is hard to describe how I felt at that moment – I suppose that “proud” might describe the feeling, but it seemed like something more. Making it to the summit represented my ability to overcome a major physical challenge, but the event was also something of a metaphor for many of the things going on in my life. Whatever the feeling was, it felt great!

The rest of the day was an aggressive descent down roughly 7,500 feet in about 7 hours. We were all exhausted to say the least. I was still having asthma-like symptoms when I got into camp, so I decided to ask Benno if he had any suggestions. He said that it sounded like I had come down with a mild case of bronchitis and that I likely contracted it on the flight over. Benno assured me that the Cipiro that I was already taking would be effective, but that it might take up to 72 hours for the symptoms to clear up. I felt bad bothering Benno about work issues on his vacation, but he was very nice about it. I must admit that it was great to have a doctor along on the trip – not to mention a doctor who was also a cool guy to hang out with.

Day 9 – Monday, August 2nd, 2004

We all slept well last night and awoke to make the final 3-hour hike to the exit gate at Moshi. The hike went well, but my legs were extremely sore from yesterday’s aggressive descent. There were many steps on today’s trail, and each step down was a bit of a challenge for my soar legs! Funny, but true… About half way through the hike, it started to rain a bit in the jungle. I must admit that the rain did not bother me a bit. In fact, I am glad that I got to experience some rain in the jungles of Africa.

Once we reached the gate we were greeted by Eben, the crew, and many cases of beer! It was still raining a bit, but we didn’t care. We all celebrated, the porters sang, and we drank! We each got a certificate for completing the trek to the summit. We also went through the tipping ceremony. I took great pleasure in rewarding nSaji – my porter, the cooking crew, Wilbert, and Biggie. There was much singing by the porters, and many of the other tourists at the gate seemed to be wondering how they managed to miss all the fun!

Later that day we made it back to our hotel rooms at the Impala in Arusha. We spent the evening in the Impala restaurant / bar celebrating our success and Eben’s birthday. It was a great ending to the day.

That night I finally had the opportunity to check my e-mail via the Impala’s “Internet Café”. I had many great e-mails from Amber and that made me miss her even more. As luck would have it, she was actually on-line at the same time and we were able to IM each other! It was just what I needed. I loved having the opportunity to talk her.

Chapter Three – Safari!

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2004

Our first safari location was Tarangire National Park. Our driver, Authman, picked us up in Arusha in the morning and we drove to Tarangire in time to start our safari after lunch. The funny part is that we saw a bunch of animals before we even made it to our lodge for lunch! We saw beautiful giraffes, a bunch of zebras, many impalas, elephants, and more! Balazs even wondered if the spectacle was somehow arranged for tourists, but it proved to be just the beginning.
The lodge was interesting because it consisted of “Luxury Tents”. My room was basically an old canvas army A-frame tent with a sort of indoor-outdoor bathroom built off the back. The tent had a descent bed, basic furniture, and generator powered lighting for most of the day and some of the evening. The lodge, and the tents for that matter, was situated on a bluff overlooking a beautiful portion of the Tarangire river valley. As I looked out from the porch of my tent, I could see small herds of elephants wandering below, zebras, giraffes, baboons, etc. It was simply an amazing sight to behold!

Our first afternoon out in the park was great! Authman drove us around in a Toyota Land Cruiser that had holes cut in the roof so that you could stand up and look around. We had amazing close encounters (less than 30 feet!) with elephants, zebras, impalas, giraffes, and more. I took many, many pictures.

Wednesday, August 4th, 2004

On Wednesday we had a full day in the park – complete with box lunches. We covered a vast majority of the park and saw many wonderful plants, animals, and birds. We finally got our first glimpse of a pride of lions that had recently taken down a zebra. I had an excellent view of the male lion, three females, and a couple of cubs. I was so excited. I am a big fan of the cats, and it blew me away to be soo close to these beautiful lions. It was amazing.

We also got another special treat. Nate spotted a heard of zebras off in a field of tall grass that seemed to be perturbed by something. Upon closer inspection, we saw three lionesses hiding in the grass, stalking the zebra! We got to watch the entire hunt. It was fantastic to watch the lions at work. They slowly crouched and moved along in the grass, and occasionally you could see a pair of black tipped ears peaking out of the grass. The frightened zebra huddled butt to butt in a tight circle. Eventually, a smart zebra was able to lead the herd to safety, but even without seeing the kill, the whole event was fantastic to watch. I was very happy to get the chance to see the lions do their thing.

Among other cool sights, Authman showed us a giant baobab tree that was hollow inside and was big enough to house several people. It turns out that the tree was the site of a major rhino poacher bust back in the 70’s.

Late in the day we were lucky enough to catch a leopard lounging up in a tree. Very nice! What a beautiful animal!

Thursday, August 5th, 2004

On Thursday we drove to the famous Ngorongoro crater. The crater is the largest complete caldera in the world and is home to many different animals. This park is right on the rift valley and is very close to Olduvai gorge where the world famous Leakey family has done tremendous research on the origin of mankind.

We made it to the crater in time to spend a couple of hours in the afternoon looking around for animals. It became immediately obvious that Ngorongoro is very different from Tarangire. The crater floor is flat with few trees, lots of grass, and a few major watering holes and creeks. There is enough of a food supply in the crater that many migratory animals make it their permanent home. There are many grazing animals, a good number of predators, and many scavengers. Unlike the hills and valleys of Tarangire, we basically drove along the relatively flat crater floor to see what we could see. There were huge herds of zebra, impala, wildebeest, and buffalo. In the watering holes there were relatively large groups of active hippos. They were great fun to watch.

Friday, August 6th, 2004

On Friday we got to spend a full day in the crater. We spotted several cheetahs low in the grass, far off in the distance. We even got to witness a loan lioness eating her freshly killed wildebeest. We also saw hyenas, jackals, buzzards, and bat eared foxes.

Late in the afternoon we took the time to visit a Massai village on the crater rim. It was a very interesting experience. I was excited to interact with some Massai people, and I was curious to learn about how they lived. When we got to the village, the son of the chief explained that he would be happy to show us around the village, but it would cost our group $50. We knew this in advance and agreed. I was a bit shocked to realize that the village was setup to sell things made by the Massai. At every opportunity, the chief’s son tried to sell us something or tried to get us to “donate” some money. It was cool to see the village, visit a mud-dung hut, and talk with the chief’s son, but the money thing kind of turned me off. We were also invited to jump along with the Massai men as they sang. It was pretty cool once I got the hang of it.

We stayed in a very nice lodge at the top of the crater rim – at roughly 8,000 feet! Believe it or not, everything at that altitude was covered in thick jungle – a far cry from what I am used to seeing at that altitude in the Sierras back in California! The food at the lodge was great and the rooms were comfortable and spacious. The view of the crater from the dining room was spectacular. All and all, it was a very nice setup.

Saturday, August 7th, 2004

On Saturday (our last day on safari) we traveled to Lake Manyara National Park. This park is small enough that we had a chance to cover it pretty well in one afternoon. Unfortunately the lake had dried and receded quite a bit, so we didn’t get a good look at the thousands of flamingos, but we did get some great views of giraffes, vervet monkeys, baboons, and some elephants.

Chapter Four – Going Home…

Sunday, August 8th, 2004

We spent most of Sunday in our day room in downtown Arusha. Nate and I tried to get out and explore the town on foot, but we were quickly over run by street peddlers. Suffice it to say that we were way too tired to deal with their constant attempts to sell us stuff, so we retreated back to the hotel until it was time to head to the airport.

The flight home was long. While at Heathrow I asked around to see if anyone knew my cousin Anthea Edgar who works for British Airways – no luck though. The flight from Heathrow to LAX on Virgin Atlantic was pretty cool because we were on a 747 that was decked out with a really cool interior and a great personal entertainment system. Nate and I even got to hang out in the first class bar with a really friendly stewardess who told us all about the company and had us sold on flying first class next time!

Conclusion

So was the trip worth all of the time, money, and preparation? ABSOLUTELY! I would highly recommend this trip to anyone. It was the perfect pre-wedding pre-turing-thrity adventure! I learned a lot about myself, the Tanzanian culture, and the amazing wildlife over there.

So what is next? I’m not sure… I am keeping my options open… maybe Asia?